Despair/Disrepair
by Julia Sneden
Back at the end of
June, there was an Associated Press article in our local paper
that bore the headline: “School Crowding Linked to Disrepair.”
It seems that the pundits in the Education Department in Washington,
D.C., have issued a report suggesting that overcrowding and crumbling
buildings go hand in hand.
Well, as the kids say, “duh!”
You can’t cram school children into classrooms like clothing into an overstuffed
suitcase and expect anything but a mess and a broken container. Buildings
that are already old simply can’t take the strain of more bodies stomping
on the floors, shouldering through the halls, using the toilets, etc. According
to the report, more than one-fifth of the country’s schools hold more students
than they were meant to serve. This translates to something like 17,400
schools that are at least six per cent over capacity. Two thirds of those
schools (which means, in human terms, the places where almost 18 million
children spend their days), have roofs, plumbing and other problems that
need maintenance and/or violate building codes.
Following the introduction of
the birth control pill there was a huge dip in the demographics of school-age
children, and many districts laid off teachers and closed down schools.
Since then, however, the children of the baby boomers have come along.
Rather than build new schools to accommodate them, many school districts
(especially in the inner cities) have attempted to deal with the problem
in other ways. They have enlarged class size and put students in “temporaries”
(read trailers). They have cut “frills” from their programs so that they
could hire more classroom teachers and use the gyms and libraries and art
rooms and music rooms in ways that they were never designed to be used.
They have cut maintenance budgets to the bone, and hired untrained people,
for minimum wage, to clean and maintain the buildings. They have even deferred
crucial maintenance. In short, they have done everything they could to
avoid the one thing that could ameliorate the situation: building new schools.
I am not one who thinks that learning
can’t happen under less-than-perfect circumstances. Of course it can.
In my first grade class in Redwood City, California, there were something
like 36 children, and as far as I know, every one of us learned to read
that year. But our school didn’t have a roof that leaked, and our classroom
never lacked for supplies even during those WW2 days when things were rationed.
By way of contrast, I know of a school in a major southern city that in
1994 provided one box of crayons for an entire class of first graders.
If the teacher wanted more, she had to buy them out of her own pocket.
Schools with bathrooms so decrepit
and filthy that children won’t use them are not at all uncommon. Rooms
that are freezing cold in winter and unbelievably hot and airless in early
fall or late spring are a dime a dozen. Classrooms furniture is often faded
and rickety and out of scale for the child’s size. Leaky roofs, broken
playground equipment (or none at all), peeling paint and dirty or broken
windows are common all across the country. The connection between disrepair
and despair is palpable. Shoddy schools are not cheerful places that are
conducive to good learning.
What surprises me is that so many adults decry
the destructiveness of children today, and seem to feel that school deterioration
can be blamed on the kids. It seems to me that it’s the other way around.
You can’t cram too many human beings into small spaces and expect them
to behave civilly. Scientific study after scientific study confirms that
overcrowding of any animal population brings out aberrant behavior. Witness
the lemmings. And to those who cry: “more discipline!” I say that you can’t
ask a teacher to be everywhere at all times. The ratio of adults to children
is a key factor in keeping order in an overcrowded room.
We put children into unhealthy,
unpleasant, even dangerous situations, and then we expect them to concentrate
on hard stuff like math and literature. It’s crazy. But beyond the bare
fact that we’re neglecting our kids lies something that’s also important:
We are failing to provide our children with reasonable standards for how
to live.
A few years ago, the world began noticing
a strange and wonderful thing that was happening in Italy. The schools
of the Reggio-Emilia region had developed a startling educational philosophy
that made great good sense to those of us who teach (or taught) small children.
The Reggio-Emilia approach is far too
complex to outline here in detail, but one pertinent feature of it bears
examination. Small children, say these educators, need humane surroundings
in which to learn. The aesthetics of school buildings and classrooms must
promote all that is best about human civilization. They must allow each
child space and comfort and something beautiful. Classrooms should have
lots of natural light, comfortable furniture (i.e. well designed and of
appropriate size) and pleasant spaces. Rooms should be colorful, and decorated
with art works of all kinds, done both by children and by adults. There
should be plants and animals, and interesting objects from the natural
world. There should be materials that invite a child’s investigation and
use, and spark the imagination. And everything should be displayed or set
out in an orderly, uncluttered, aesthetically pleasing fashion.
The discipline in the schools
of Reggio-Emilia would probably be considered quite strict by current American
standards. The point to note is that the children there are taught how
to care for their physical surroundings. They feel ownership and pride
in them. They learn to appreciate cleanliness and beauty because they are
surrounded by them. In other words, human beings, even very small human
beings, respond to a positive environment.
It’s rather a revolutionary idea,
but it works. It certainly won’t hurt to spend our educational dollars
on building new schools and renovating old ones, but let’s not slip into
the old tried-and-true business of throwing money at the problems and then
turning away. Let’s insist that our children and grandchildren be placed
in classrooms that reflect all that is best in our world. Let’s be sure
that the ratio of students to adults is kept as low as possible. Let’s
not stint on the upkeep of the physical surroundings, and let’s insist
on proper maintenance (after all, the buildings represent a large public
investment). Let’s go one step beyond mindless building and repair and
ensure that every child associates learning with a place that is welcoming
and beautiful and clean and safe.